Statement of the Belarusian National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum In connection with the wave of searches in the editorial offices of the media and the detention of journalists

Dozens of jour­nal­ists were inter­ro­gat­ed in the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee, a num­ber of them car­ried out search­es at home and seized com­put­er equip­ment. As of the evening of August 8, jour­nal­ists Mary­na Zolata­va, Han­na Kalty­hi­na, Gali­na Ulasik, Han­na Erma­chonak, Paulyuk Byk­ous­ki and Ali­ak­sei Zhukau were detained for 3 days.

We, the par­tic­i­pants of the Belaru­sian Nation­al Plat­form of the East­ern Part­ner­ship Civ­il Soci­ety Forum, ful­ly agree with the pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished State­ment of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”, the Belaru­sian PEN Cen­ter and the Office for the Rights of Peo­ple with Dis­abil­i­ties, and we also believe recent events are a fla­grant vio­la­tion of free­dom of expres­sion and media activ­i­ties. The nature of the actions of law enforce­ment agen­cies is obvi­ous­ly exces­sive in rela­tion to the charges being brought. The deten­tion of jour­nal­ists who are not of pub­lic dan­ger for 3 days is an exces­sive inves­tiga­tive mea­sure. Of par­tic­u­lar con­cern is the cam­paign that began in the state-run media to den­i­grate the rep­u­ta­tion of the media and jour­nal­ists under inves­ti­ga­tion, includ­ing the alleged­ly reveal­ing of inves­tiga­tive mate­ri­als, which is unac­cept­able for any coun­try that respects the pre­sump­tion of inno­cence and the rule of law. Inves­ti­ga­tion of crim­i­nal cas­es should not affect free­dom of jour­nal­ists and the pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties of media.

The greater con­cern about the nature of the inves­ti­ga­tion is against the back­drop of sys­tem­at­ic vio­la­tions of the right to dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and intim­i­date jour­nal­ists through the per­se­cu­tion of Bela­PAN founder Alexan­der Lipai and a num­ber of jour­nal­ists of the Bel­sat TV chan­nel.
We call on the author­i­ties of Belarus to imme­di­ate­ly release all detained jour­nal­ists. We also call on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­is­tic and human rights asso­ci­a­tions, as well as diplo­mats and politi­cians to pay atten­tion to this sit­u­a­tion, give it an appro­pri­ate assess­ment and sup­port actions to pro­tect free­dom of speech in our coun­try.

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The Belaru­sian Nation­al Plat­form of the East­ern Part­ner­ship Civ­il Soci­ety Forum was found­ed in July 2010, it unites over 80 orga­ni­za­tions and ini­tia­tives of var­i­ous fields on the basis of pro-Euro­pean val­ues.